SketchFill: Sketch-Guided Code Generation for Imputing Derived Missing Values

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Yunfan, Li, Changlun, Luo, Yuyu, Tang, Nan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Zhang, Yunfan
Li, Changlun
Luo, Yuyu
Tang, Nan
author_facet Zhang, Yunfan
Li, Changlun
Luo, Yuyu
Tang, Nan
contents Missing value is a critical issue in data science, significantly impacting the reliability of analyses and predictions. Missing value imputation (MVI) is a longstanding problem because it highly relies on domain knowledge. Large language models (LLMs) have emerged as a promising tool for data cleaning, including MVI for tabular data, offering advanced capabilities for understanding and generating content. However, despite their promise, existing LLM techniques such as in-context learning and Chain-of-Thought (CoT) often fall short in guiding LLMs to perform complex reasoning for MVI, particularly when imputing derived missing values, which require mathematical formulas and data relationships across rows and columns. This gap underscores the need for further advancements in LLM methodologies to enhance their reasoning capabilities for more reliable imputation outcomes. To fill this gap, we propose SketchFill, a novel sketch-based method to guide LLMs in generating accurate formulas to impute missing numerical values. Our experimental results demonstrate that SketchFill significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods, achieving 56.2% higher accuracy than CoT-based methods and 78.8% higher accuracy than MetaGPT. This sets a new standard for automated data cleaning and advances the field of MVI for numerical values.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_19113
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SketchFill: Sketch-Guided Code Generation for Imputing Derived Missing Values
Zhang, Yunfan
Li, Changlun
Luo, Yuyu
Tang, Nan
Computation and Language
Databases
Machine Learning
Missing value is a critical issue in data science, significantly impacting the reliability of analyses and predictions. Missing value imputation (MVI) is a longstanding problem because it highly relies on domain knowledge. Large language models (LLMs) have emerged as a promising tool for data cleaning, including MVI for tabular data, offering advanced capabilities for understanding and generating content. However, despite their promise, existing LLM techniques such as in-context learning and Chain-of-Thought (CoT) often fall short in guiding LLMs to perform complex reasoning for MVI, particularly when imputing derived missing values, which require mathematical formulas and data relationships across rows and columns. This gap underscores the need for further advancements in LLM methodologies to enhance their reasoning capabilities for more reliable imputation outcomes. To fill this gap, we propose SketchFill, a novel sketch-based method to guide LLMs in generating accurate formulas to impute missing numerical values. Our experimental results demonstrate that SketchFill significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods, achieving 56.2% higher accuracy than CoT-based methods and 78.8% higher accuracy than MetaGPT. This sets a new standard for automated data cleaning and advances the field of MVI for numerical values.
title SketchFill: Sketch-Guided Code Generation for Imputing Derived Missing Values
topic Computation and Language
Databases
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.19113